Notes about the Pre-Raphaelites (23/5/12)

The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood is founded in 1848 by a group of painters, who are interested also in poetry. The leader of the group is Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the movement is the basis of Aestheticism movement.
The Pre-Raphaelites painters consider the Medieval art the real art and they use some subjects of that art, reviewing them. During the first part of the 19ieth century there is Romanticism, that looks at the Medieval Age. The Pre-Raphaelites refuse Victorian art and architecture, because they consider it monotonous and mechanical. During the Victorian Age the most important form of art are paintings about the everyday life, that show a rich furniture. The Pre-Raphaelites painters are interested into the naturalistic details and in this way they fix the moment, so there is no movement in the paint.
In Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting Proserpine, there is a review of the Medieval subject of the Virgin Mary. The attention is focused on the pomegranate (that is a review of Bible apple). The portrayed woman suggests something besides reality: she has not a saint's behaviour, but she inspires an erotic desire. Moreover the colour of her hair (red) contribute to create sensuality. Women are seductive in their paintings and bring man in another dimension. It is the prelude of sense poetry and of the worship of the senses, that will be the basis of Aestheticism, whose most important exponents are Oscar Wilde in England, Joris-Karl Huysmans in France and Gabriele D'Annunzio in Italy.
The philosopher behind this movement is Walter Pater, who says that the moment is worth living in life is the ecstatic moment.